Rahul Gandhi’s asset portfolio: Needs a facelift just like his politics — this is what experts say

Former Congress President and incumbent member of Parliament (MP) Rahul Gandhi recently filed his nomination papers from Wayanad in Kerala, the constituency he represents in the lower house of Parliament.

Among several disclosures, he also disclosed his total assets amounting to ₹20 crore. He has ₹9.24 crore in movable assets, out of which ₹55,000 in cash, ₹26.25 lakh in bank deposits, ₹4.33 crore in bonds and shares, ₹3.81 crore in mutual funds, ₹15.21 lakh in gold bonds and ₹4.20 lakh in jewellery.

We spoke to several financial experts to gauge how prudent the senior Congress leader's portfolio is.

They believe that the portfolio – by and large -- is decent. However, just as with everything else in the world — there is a scope for improvement in Rahul Gandhi’s portfolio as well. Let us understand more about this here:

Decent portfolio

Deepesh Raghaw, a Sebi-registered investment advisor, believes that the portfolio is quite decent but the allocation to small caps is too high.

“If I were him, I would invest 30-35 per cent in fixed-income assets. Besides, there is a huge allocation to small-cap funds, which is a risky thing to do,” says Raghaw.

There should be ideal key allocation between different asset classes viz equity, debt and gold, and from that perspective, Rahul Gandhi’s asset allocation is decent, Raghaw says. And then there should be good sub-allocation as well wherein there should be less allocation to stocks and more to mutual funds whereas the ratio is reversed, he asserts.

Notably, he has mutual funds worth ₹3.81 crore while allocation to stocks and bonds is higher and stands at ₹4.33 crore.

Is he a conservative investor?

Amol Joshi, founder of Plan Rupee Investment Service, says that it is a conservative portfolio where most of the assets are invested in property and only 20 per cent are invested in the ‘risky’ assets.

However, he believes that it is not appropriate to offer specific suggestions to improve the portfolio since he is not aware of Rahul Gandhi's risk appetite and financial goals.

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However, Gandhi can still redeem 20 per cent of his allocation in regular savings debt funds (out of a total of ₹1.02 crore) and redeploy the assets in flexi cap funds every time the market falls by 5 per cent, Joshi adds.

Sridharan S, Founder of Wealth Ladder Direct also believes that the portfolio is far too conservative with more than 55 per cent in physical assets and the remaining in financial assets.

"It should be the other way round. An investor should ideally invest less money in real estate and more in financial ones," Sridharan explains.

"There should be more allocation to debt assets. The ideal allocation should be 40 per cent in equity, 20 per cent in debt, 10 per cent in gold and 30 per cent in real estate with a scope of 10 per cent more," he noted.

Cluttered portfolio?

One expert we spoke to believes that Rahul has too many equity stocks which makes his portfolio cluttered. So, it is advisable to have fewer stocks.

“One can select the top five sectors and, within those sectors, select the top 2 companies. One can buy stocks in such companies when you find a fair valuation. It's better to have 60/65 and 40/35 allocation to large cap and midcap stocks,” says Preeti Zende, a sebi-registered investment advisor and founder of Apna Dhan Financial Services.

“As far as mutual funds are concerned, he has followed a goal-based investment strategy but he is still investing in some regular plans where he is paying unnecessary third-party commissions. He should replace the HDFC Small Cap regular plan with a Nifty Index Fund so that he can reduce overall risk in the portfolio, save commission costs and extra fund management costs,” she adds.